Why dont subtitles do this?

I'll ask you this Butch:
You see a movie set in France or Russia and the subtitles say "I'll do the assassination job for $1,600,000". Wouldn't you take that to mean that he is being paid for in US currency? You might complain that he should be paid in his native currency.

Of course, the ideal solution would be to have the subtitle as "5,000,000 lire ($2,428US)". But that could be a little confusing to read in the timeframe of a subtitle (or maybe not).

Does anyone remember when Comedy Central's The Daily Show would report domestic box office grosses in Italian Lire? It was way to cool to see movies making billions.

 

Right....as Rain
Frankly I think we should be fighting the battle of getting companies to translate songs (song lyrics are not typically included with scripts sent for translation) before anything else.
I've REALLY been trying to appriciate Bollywood movies lately, and it's very hard to do so without subs for half the movie

 

I've noticed on the French subtitles for Region 1 DVDs, when a distance is discussed in miles it is converted to kilometers in the subtitles.

 

Using the latest in digital effects, filmmakers in countries outside the US should be required to take all the Rupees, Marks, Euros, Pesos, etc in their films and replace them with digital dollars and US currency to avoid confusion.
When filming, the director should require the actors to do two takes for any scene mentioning money, one that mentions the original currency, and the other with 'these valuable, hard earned US Dollars!!' as the actors are suddenly overcome with zealous glee.
This film has been modified from the original version to include the viable currency in the Global Marketplace.
j/k
Joseph

 

I wish more studios thought the way Butch does! This has long been a pet peeve of mine. I recently encounted such a problem while watching "Insomnia."

 

Funny, I just watched Criterion's The Vanishing tonight, and a character clearly gives a distance in kilometers, but the subtitles state it in miles.

 

Let's face it, movies (or books for that matter) don't always translate perfectly into other languages. I have a friend who saw Duck Soup in Germany. There's a funny line where someone looks out the window and sees tanks coming and says "Tanks" and the reply is "Your Welcome". In German, of course, the line is "Panzers", and my friend got lots of weird looks for laughing at that part.
Another good example is Monty Python & the Holy Grail where the lines are back-translated from Japanese.
Then again, I don't know that there's that much more lost in the translation across languages, than cultural differences or for that matter, generational differences. Lots of older American movies have lines or situations I don't always understand fully. Hell, it took me many viewings of The Wrong Trousers to realize that braces meant suspenders, and I still don't understand what it means when they call each other "Chuck". Maybe they should subtitle films from England.

 

I've wondered about this for a long time too ... how about making your own liner notes? You would need access to a resource for currency conversion on the dates specified, and another for inflation. Anyone have any ideas on where to get this info?

- Jeff

 

There's also the question of having to make different translations for British, Australian, American, and Canadian audiences. Why is a Brit going to want to see people in France talking American dollars? I personally, don't have a problem with the mention of foreign currencies in foreign films.